Anybody used to work for Universal Computer Systems?

That was a bizzare place.

Was that the one in Houston that would blanket A&M with advertisements and interview everybody on campus if you just showed up? You took some kind of apititude test?

Did you work in the cafeteria?

I have almost repressed my memories of UCS to the point that I cannot accurately recount them.

(EDIT: OK, that was there long enough.)

Huh, I guess my memory repression skills aren't that great after all.

I'm not giving up on implausible dreams
Experience to extremes
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[This message has been edited by Big.Cat-93 (edited 1/3/2003 11:54a).]

open up bring back the memories.

All I'll say is this: DO NOT skip the Christmas party and the 10K. You'll hear about it, quite negatively, later on.

I once got written up for excessive phone usage. I don't remember the number of minutes, but it was something like 5 minutes over the maximum monthly allottment-around 45 minutes or so. I pretty much laughed it off until I got a letter from the VP telling me that I was stealing from the company because I was on the phone for 5 minutes a day.

What makes this even more ridiculous, is that UCS had 4 full-time employees monitoring phone usage. So they spent over 100k in salaries micromanaging their employees to make sure they weren't on the phone too much.

that sounds inefficent.

.

[This message has been edited by zip1992 (edited 1/3/2003 12:44p).]

I was part of the founding crew at the College Station location. It is a very strange company, no doubt.

I was part of the founding crew at the College Station location. It is a very strange company, no doubt.

I passed all of the tests but failed the background check...one night in jail and no UCS...thank god.

what is this gernade meeting?

i use to work for rentsys housed in the same building as UCS in college station, anybody else work there? and yes do not miss the christmas party, oh the stories i could tell.


[This message has been edited by stevopike (edited 1/3/2003 11:44a).]

You recall correctly, zip.

Lots of awkward silence in that meeting.

I worked there from 3/86 until 10/94...I lasted that long because I had a lot of knowledge/experience they were willing to pay for/put up with for a while...the most micromanaged place I've ever seen...door codes to indicate your location all the time (of course, it was just as easy to tell the system some other location)...phone abuse reports...I once had my VP tell me I couldn't give one of my employees (my best worker) a raise because he had had knee surgery and his wife had had a baby that year.

Big Cat...you worked for Michael Creagh at some point, didn't you?

My attorney has advised me not to answer that question.

anyone know of chris cooper, his dad is a vp there at the cs branch?

I had two roommates in college that worked there. They never said a good thing about the company. I heard the stories about the location monitoring. One of my roommates also got written up for "phone abuse". How funny is that?

This isn't that weird. I worked in Enron's fitness center and my boss would monitor my web site usage and location and arrival/departure/lunch/etc. all the time. I wised up and started deleting cookies and going through UH's server. There are ways to get around the system, especially when it is pointless anyway.

When I worked there in CS, they had a no tobacco policy. i do not smoke, so this was not a problem.

the funny thing was that every manager we had there came from corporate HQ in Houston and ALL OF THEM dipped, chewed and smoked.

I've never known anyone who worked there and liked it.

i woul dhave made them fire me.

I worked there for about 8 months and didn't like it at all. They love having facilities in College Station because they can pay below the industry average. They pay the VP's and other Exec's ridiculously high salaries while one of my friends in rentsys (owned by UCS) couldn't afford to buy groceries and pay rent at the same time. The ethics of that company are awful and I think it will some day be their downfall.

Computer Nerd - who do u work for now?

I woked there from 4/97-5/01. It was the worst 4 years of my life but some of my closest friends from college were co-workers. Its kind of like hell week all the time, everybody hates it and there is a bonding. Chris Cooper doesn't do anything productive for that company and neither does his dad. ChargerAg, I tried to get fired but they wouldn't do it. I got written up for excesive phone use and I got to the point were I practically told my boss to kiss my ass and they still did not fire me.

so the word is that you can't get fired from there?



what is this gernade story?

Oh, you can definitely get fired from there.

I'll let zip tell the grenade story. I've opened my big yapper too much already.

I am very interested in this grenade story.

did they throw a gernade on the least performing employee and let his guts explode on everybody as a lesson?

Ha...close.

[This message has been edited by Big.Cat-93 (edited 1/3/2003 6:07p).]

I had several buddies who worked there and I almost did, but I too failed the background check (hmmm- one arrest for a public intoxication disqualifies me @ UCS, but not law school, odd isn't it?).

Everybody who worked there called it a "sweat shop" and hated it. One guy said that he got fired because he was working on something, made a mistake and jokingly cried into one of the surveillance cameras(how big brother is that?) and said "Oh sh*t, now I can't get my daily bowl of rice" or something to that effect. When reprimanded for "disturbing the work environment" he called the company a cult and went off on some Kathie Lee sweat-shop rant.


Few things are more depressing than a stripper with no self-confidence.

"you have to play this game with fear and arrogance"

THAT is a little psycho. What was the fallout from that situation?

so like or else or so?

I worked for UCS when they were still in the shopping center with DC Biologicals and Golden Coral, also worked at their new location when they moved to it over at Rock Prarie, that place was super wierd...had to clock in at the door using a special door code...even clock out with a special code to just go to the bath room....freakin Nazi's...plus the no smoking or dipping...I worked on the PC Team and everybody and their mother dipped at work ...it was insane, wouldn't recommend anybody EVER work there